I am lonely without you and desire a return of your constant love and affection.

I expect one could deconstruct her beautiful tussie mussies to create your own specific Valentine’s Day message. Did you know that while the rose is always about love different types of love require different roses. For example the white rose is for innocent love, while the red rose says ‘I love you’ in the most direct way. There are many ways of looking at the language of the rose.

I have an annual subscription to the Jacquie Lawson website which allows me to send gorgeous animated and musical e-cards (for any occasion) to friends. A card I have sent to many people is The Eloquent Arrangement in which a basket of flowers is assembled and when it is done the recipient can let her mouse hover over each blossom to read the message sent – allium for patience, dogwood for durability and pimpernel for change, all aspects of love. The basket contains other flowers and other aspects of love as well.

As you prepare for Valentine’s Day, what tussie mussie might you assemble – with traditional meanings, or possibly with your own symbols and references?

Know that there are also guy tussie-mussies called toughie-muscles. A guy might greet his try love with an edible nosegay of a small sheaf of wheat stalks, a few vanilla beans, a cocoa pod or two and some sugar canes. The message naturally being, “Honey, I’m starving to death! Glad you’ve come home – please bake me a cake!” In Milwaukee a guy’s tussie-mussie would include a hops, barley, and malt and essentially mean “Hey, get me a beer, would ya?”

Yes, Pat, so true. And so well said, too. A properly assembled tussle-mussie would reflect a real understanding and appreciation of one’s beloved. After recalling Dorothy Parker’s “One Perfect Rose” I’d expect her tussle-mussie would come with car keys:

A single flow’r he sent me, since we met.
All tenderly his messenger he chose;
Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet–
One perfect rose.
I knew the language of the floweret;
“My fragile leaves,” it said, “his heart enclose.”
Love long has taken for his amulet
One perfect rose.

Why is it no one ever sent me yet
One perfect limousine, do you suppose?
Ah no, it’s always just my luck to get
One perfect rose.

This reminds me of a book I read a few years ago, “The Language of Flowers.” It’s fiction but filled with lots of info about the meanings of each flower. I liked the story, but also found the significance of flowers fascinating. Love the Dorothy Parker poem:)